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Poetry Is The Most Direct And Simple Means Of Expressing Oneself In Words: The Most Primitive Nations Have Poetry, But Only Quitewell Developed Civilizations Can Produce Good Prose. So Don't Think Of Poetry As A Perverse And Unnatural Way Of Distorting Ordinary Prose Statements: Prose Is A Much Less Natural Way Of Speaking Than Poetry Is. If You Listen To Small Children, And To The Amount Of Chanting And Singsong In Their Speech, You'll See What I Mean.

-Northrop Frye

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Poetry Is The Most

Northrop Frye

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Poetry Is The Most Direct And Simple Means Of Expressing Oneself In Words: The Most Primitive Nations Have Poetry, But Only Quitewell Developed Civilizations Can Produce Good Prose. So Don't Think Of Poetry As A Perverse And Unnatural Way Of Distorting Ordinary Prose Statements: Prose Is A Much Less Natural Way Of Speaking Than Poetry Is. If You Listen To Small Children, And To The Amount Of Chanting And Singsong In Their Speech, You'll See What I Mean.

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Nature Is Inside Art As Its Content, Not Outside As Its Model.

Teaching Literature Is Impossible; That Is Why It Is Difficult.

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There Is Only One Way To Degrade Mankind Permanently And That Is To Destroy Language.

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Most Of My Writing Consists Of An Attempt To Translate Aphorisms Into Continuous Prose.

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A Person Who Knows Nothing About Literature May Be An Ignoramus, But Many People Don't Mind Being That.

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